Spark
by Cytisus
Summary: An interesting turn of events finally leads to two hardheaded ducks discovering their feelings for one another. Eventual W/M, rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

Oh goodness, she's at it again.

To answer a question on a previous story's comment, I do attempt to stay in the same universe of mine. I probably have dug myself loopholes, but I did try to piece some connections in with this story.

I also post full stories because I do not trust myself to finish something otherwise. I can't tell you how many times I rework, delete, and add scenes in a story before I'm happy with the flow.

Certain parts of this story does get dragged out because, in my eyes, these characters are too stubborn to get together that easily.

Crazy OOC, some drama, lots of tension because that's actually really fun to write, and just plain fluff because it's what I do.

* * *

The intent had been simple enough: go in, verify that everything was in order, and leave.

Of course, nothing is ever really that easy.

Drake One had detected a weird energy signature in a building on the far outskirts of the city, so far in fact that it really shouldn't have been classified as city limits. Aside from a lonely highway and a motel sign down the road, the building was the only semblance of civilization to be had.

Nonetheless, the signature was large enough to concern Tanya, which meant it concerned Wildwing; and that meant a scouting mission.

Tensions were already high throughout the team, and for various reasons. Duke and Nosedive had had a huge argument during last night's game about a particular move that didn't go as planned, so the usual banter between the two had been replaced with either silence or accusatory one liners.

Tanya was angry with Nosedive because he, as teenagers are wont to do, had become impatient and managed to destroy a good portion of her lab because he felt the need to test his pucklauncher she'd been fixing.

She hadn't even had a chance to look at it yet, so the blocked puck issue it was having caused Nosedive's aim to be about three feet off. A nice divot was left in the far cabinet, along with about a year's salary worth of gadgets and rare finds from Lectric Land that had been housed inside.

Grin wasn't mad at any of the ducks, luckily, but he was in a foul mood thanks to Phil. The team's hockey manager had convinced him to sponsor a psychic and her "fortune" crystals, which of course ended up being a scam. Grin, however, had taken the sponsorship very seriously and had felt betrayed by the whole ordeal.

Phil had quickly realized that Grin was not a duck to swindle. The catastrophe that occurred at the attempted commercial filming last week had serendipitously kept Phil out of the Pond, which the entire team was thankful for, but it had also made Grin a walking steamroller. They had replaced about three punching bags thus far, and for the past two games Wildwing was forced to bench the large duck for fear of him critically injuring their opponents.

In lieu of his presence Phil had been sending a multitude of gifts to Grin, probably trying to get in the pacifist's good graces again.

Wildwing had been very tempted to ask Grin what exactly had occurred at that recording studio, but the large duck's attitude had kept the rest of the team pretty quiet on the subject. All Wildwing knew was that fire trucks were called and Grin was no longer allowed on the Universal Studio's backlot.

And, to add more fuel to the fire, Mallory and Wildwing had been riding a very tumultuous rapport the past few weeks, thanks to Wildwing's idiocy.

The captain sighed in present time, his track of thoughts paused as a rain of gunfire flew over his head. He was currently pressed against the backside of a bar, doing his best to not get shot by the barrage of robots that had tried to attack them unaware.

They weren't Hunter Drones, so this was most likely not Dragaunas' doing. When the ducks had entered the building they had discovered it to be a rather seedy strip joint, which in and of itself was not surprising.

They had seen their fair share of squalid establishments in their nearly six months on Earth. Puckworld was no stranger to the alcohol and hormone-driven facilities either, though back home the ducks had some much stronger mood altering beverages than their human counterparts.

The stripping aspect of it was eerily similar to the things Wildwing had seen back home, too, thanks to some interesting college years the captain had experienced. The lack of feathers and beak made it hard for him to find a human body attractive—despite their hockey fans' persistent attempts—but in terms of seduction through dancing, lingerie, body type . . . it was hard to deny the parallels and subsequent appreciation.

Which, now that he thought about it, was a part of what led to these turn of events.

"Wildwing!"

Presently the captain turned to his name, seeing Mallory crawl up next to him behind the bar. He had to feign ignorance at the fact that she smelled like a vat of stale beer, thanks to their earlier altercation with the exotic club's owner.

Of course, being drenched in beer and then having to evade the violent manlike robots also meant that every piece of dust and debris was beginning to stick to her as well. Some comedy might have been found in that if it weren't for the events leading up to the beer soak, and the fact that they were in a life or death situation at the moment.

Details, details.

"I see our way out," the redhead proclaimed once she made it safely next to Wildwing. She nodded to the other side of the building, where some stray fire had managed to tear down most of the drywall. While not completely open it was as beautiful of an exit as Wildwing had ever seen.

He agreed to her idea with his own nod, risking a glance around the edge of the bar wall to see the situation at hand. Grin and Nosedive were closer to the newly made exit, having hidden behind one of the dance stages when the gunfire erupted.

Unable to call out or signal to them, Wildwing opened his COM. "Dive, can you hear me?"

"Roger that, Bro!"

"Take that exit they made in the wall next to you—we'll cover you!"

"And what about you guys?!"

Wildwing glanced at Mallory, who watched him intently. "We got my shield—it should hold out enough to get us the hell out of here."

"Wing—"

"We don't got a choice on this one, Baby Bro. On the count of ten!" Wildwing ended the COM link, silently counting in his head and preparing to jump out.

Mallory was next to him, her puckblaster at the ready. "You sure your shield will hold?"

Wildwing gave her a facetious smile. "I guess we'll find out." Giving a more serious look he added, "Stay behind me, okay?"

Mallory frowned but gave a curt nod. Wildwing's silent countdown was over.

"Go!"

Activating the shield as he stood, Wildwing brought it up and aimed his wrist blaster, firing like crazy at anything that resembled a robot. He immediately began to feel the gunfire against the force shield, the torrent of metal jolting his arm like an earthquake.

Mallory had stood up and stayed behind him, only briefly turning and exposing herself to get a few rounds in. Her puckblaster was set to maximum damage and was currently leaving some sizeable holes in the robots she managed to hit.

Seconds felt like an eternity when a slowly fading force shield was the only thing between you and certain annihilation. He gradually made his way to the exit, keeping an eye on the robots to make sure they didn't try to change their positions to get a side shot in.

There was a loud explosion outside, beyond the wall, but Wildwing couldn't look to see. It felt like the whole building shook when it hit, though.

"They're out!" Mallory yelled behind him, having a better vantage point. "I'm hoping that was the Aerowing we heard outside!"

Wildwing grunted and took a large step back from a rather heavy onslaught of firing. He felt himself bump into Mallory and risked a glance back to make sure he hadn't knocked her over.

If he hadn't looked back at that precise moment he wouldn't have seen the ceiling cave in from above. With certain death overhead and many small deaths coming from the other end of the club, Wildwing's next actions were instinctual.

Keeping his shield facing the robots, Wildwing turned his whole body around and used his other arm to grab a surprised Mallory. He brought her to his chest and hunched down, the shield coming up at an angle to try and stop the falling debris from crushing them.

Not a second later Wildwing felt the heavy weight of the ceiling, even through the force shield, and cried out as the weight pushed him down to the ground. Mallory was partly under him and to his side, and did her best to stay under the force shield as chunks of pipe, wall, and duct came raining down on them.

On the bright side, Wildwing mused, there weren't any more bullets coming at them. He struggled as the weight on his force shield became almost unbearable, until a sudden heavy load caused his forearm to jerk back and slam into his head.

His vision faded quickly as he felt his body completely collapse.


	2. Chapter 2

_2 hours earlier_

Considering that a group of overly dressed, alien crimefighting ducks had just entered a seedy strip joint, it wasn't exactly surprising that the reception they received was unfriendly. Duke and Tanya had stayed with the Aerowing as a precaution, but even just the four of them entering the building triggered some burly bouncers to approach and immediately escort them to the back of the venue, where they were brought behind some large curtains and out of wandering eyes.

Beyond the velvet fabric was a small VIP room with a table and sofas, which they were "encouraged" to sit at. To not cause a spectacle Wildwing nodded to his team to abide by their rules, letting the bouncers guide them to their seats.

They made sure to purposely sit far apart from one another, however, to be able to see their surroundings from all angles.

Wildwing was tempted to scan the room with his Mask, but it would require him to bring his hand up to the side of his face, not to mention the Mask's eyes would glow from the scanning process. Both actions would not be subtle, which would more than likely cause more trouble than necessary at the moment.

The bouncers took stations around the group, creating an interesting circle of tension between the two forces. After a few moments of thick silence the curtains fluttered open briefly, revealing a rather skinny man in a tuxedo, accompanied by two very attractive ladies in barely-there lingerie.

Mallory dramatically rolled her eyes, earning herself a poignant look from Wildwing. She thankfully kept her beak shut.

"My my, what an interesting group to come visit my club. You should've notified me ahead of time, I could've made some more comfortable arrangements for you."

The man, with thick dark hair and a goatee styled to perfection, sat partially on the side of one of the sofa's headrests, next to Nosedive. He crossed his legs and leaned into it, one of his hands coming uncomfortably close behind the teenage duck's head.

Nosedive shifted away impulsively, giving himself enough room to turn and look at the stranger.

"Don't worry, I don't bite," the newcomer joked, though his tone was still neutral and monotonous.

"I'm sorry, you are…?" Wildwing asked, his feathers bristling with slight anxiety.

"The owner of Latrévo: Alek Baros." His matter-of-fact statement was still very impartial, making his entire demeanor hard to gauge. Duke probably would've been able to read him, which made Wildwing instantly regret giving the ex-thief guard duty.

The two ladies that had accompanied Alek had walked up to the nearby private bar and were now filling some pitchers with beer from a nearby keg. They kept their backs to the group but made sure to keep up pretenses by coyly lifting a leg up as they worked, and bending over to give a clear sight of their backsides.

Despite their seemingly innocuous task, their movements were forced and only added to the tension in the room. Nothing about this situation was sitting right with Wildwing.

The leader swallowed his fear, turning his attention back to the club owner. "Well, Mr. Baros, I'm sorry for the intrusion. There was some indication that there was a threat here, so we came to investigate." Wildwing shifted only slightly in his seat, keeping his back purposely slouched to make himself seem unconcerned. He was anything but.

"Did you now." Again, a statement, not a question. Alek very nimbly stood back up and circled the back of the couch, walking past Grin and standing next to Wildwing. "Well, I could argue that some threats have certainly come to light recently."

Both Nosedive and Mallory glowered at the man, but Wildwing interrupted before they had the chance to rebuke: "Again, we apologize. It's obvious there is nothing out of the ordinary here, so we'll be going."

"Not out of the ordinary, hmm?" Alek repeated in a question. "Do ducks have the same sort of love we humans have of the body and its infinite seduction?"

Wildwing wasn't quite sure how to respond to that.

Alek came up to Wildwing, far too close for comfort, and traced the leader's silhouette in the air with his hands. "You ducks definitely have some attractive traits. Your large, masculine form with very obvious muscle definition…." Alek turned and did the same tracing of Grin. "Really, your bodies are truly the Roman ideal. Even the younger one is perfectly molded and toned." His tracing ended with Nosedive, who could only arch an eyebrow incredulously at the eccentric club owner.

Alek turned his attention to Mallory, smiling for the first time that evening. "And are all the females as soft and supple as you?"

Wildwing inwardly cringed and waited.

By some sort of miracle, the redhead only crossed her arms in front of herself, her fists in tight balls and knuckles white with constrained anger. She kept her gaze on Alek, silently challenging him.

Wildwing would have let out a sigh of relief, but the club owner simply kept his smile, walking up to Mallory.

"I imagine with all that armor removed you're quite the sight to behold." He made the same silhouette with his fingers, tracing the contours of her body. "So small, too. You must be very agile to play hockey, hmm?"

Wildwing's feathers began bristling on the back of his neck again. Alek was walking on thin ice, and the fact that Mallory hadn't already knocked the man out was something of a marvel.

When he didn't get a response, Alek opted to sit on the table in front of Mallory, continuing to scrutinize her from head to toe.

"With your hair down and a little less arm work, you'd be much more inviting. Hips are lacking, but it does at least work with your size. Of course, we would have to do something about those trivial breasts of yours—"

"ENOUGH!"

While Mallory had instantly stood up at that remark, it was Wildwing who had yelled out the order, standing up before he even realized what he was doing. The bouncers had instantly taken a defensive stance, but Alek had simply glanced over at the captain with disinterest.

Keenly aware of the situation they were in, Wildwing swallowed his next choice of words and kept his voice much lower. "I think you've antagonized us enough, Baros. We'll see ourselves out."

"I'm only responding to what's presented to me," Alek responded, shrugging as he stood back up. "After all, it is what I do for a living."

"Nothing is being _presented_ to you, bastard. I'm not a pathetic trophy to hang on your arm." Mallory had not reached for her weapon, but her hands were still making fists so tight the rest of her arms were slightly trembling.

"I'd be careful who you insult, ducky," Alek simply stated, taking a quick step back.

Wildwing saw it but could not form the words of warning in time. The two girls had been holding some pitchers and glasses, apparently getting ready to serve them beer. One held the empty glasses on the tray, while the other had both hands full with two pitchers.

While Mallory's comment had certainly been a bit of a slap in the face to the two ladies, it was obvious they were acting under Alek's orders more than their own offense. The one with the alcohol wasted no time in promptly throwing the contents of the pitchers toward Mallory, getting a rather surprised gasp from the redhead as she became completely soaked in ale.

Grin and Nosedive had also stood up as the events unfolded, probably hoping to have stopped the inevitable from occurring.

Mallory growled and turned around. The girl with the pitchers instantly jumped over the back of the couch, bringing one of her arms down in a swinging motion in an attempt to whack Mallory with the now-empty pitcher.

The redhead blocked the move easily enough, her forearm coming up to protect her head from the brunt of the blow. However, the human's strength was abnormally unparalleled: the sheer force of the pitcher hitting Mallory's arm managed to send her flying sideways and landing near Wildwing's feet with a heavy grunt.

"MOVE!" Wildwing commanded the team, instantly coming to Mallory's side and pulling her up.

Alek had disappeared into the mass of bouncers, who had begun pulling out weapons. As Wildwing helped a still-dazed Mallory to the large bar across the room, Nosedive and Grin took cover behind a dance stage as bullets began ricocheting throughout the facility.

"I'm gonna take a wild stab here, but I'm thinking those aren't human dancers!" Nosedive yelled out over the ensuing chaos.

Wildwing opened his COM once behind the safety of the wood bar. "Duke, Tanya, come in!"

Silence.

He cursed, risking a glance above the bar to see the layout. The girls were still there, but their arms had morphed into weapons, confirming Nosedive's earlier statement. Wildwing looked in surprise, however, at the lack of bouncers in the area.

"Robots!"

Wildwing glanced back down to see that Mallory had quickly recovered and pulled out her puck bazooka, looking through the partially open curtains that blocked their view from the rest of the club. He followed her gaze and, sure enough, unskinned bipedal robots were making their way towards them.

"I'm gonna get a better vantage point!" Mallory yelled over the gunfire, keeping low and making her way over to the other side of the bar.

Wildwing ducked when one of the girl robots aimed their firing arm at him, the oncoming bullets ricocheting off the bar and sending chunks of wood and glass scattering. He adjusted his settings on his forearm armor and did a quick scan with the Mask to see if any humans were still in the vicinity.

The place was eerily void of life. Had anyone in the club actually been human?

Wildwing sighed, the domino effect of events leading up to this situation weighing heavily in his mind.

Who the hell were they fighting?

* * *

 _Presently_

"Wing!"

Wildwing groggily opened his eyes, finding himself confined and heavily assaulted by the smell of old beer.

He tried to shake the cobwebs out of his head. There was a large something above him, on his back, and something soft next to him. His force shield was still on—he could hear it pulsating—but he could not see it because it was currently over his head.

He was on the ground, slightly on his side, with one of his arms bent behind his head, the shield spanning most of his back and protecting him from whatever was pressing down. His other arm was wrapped around something—someone—

Shit. "Mallory?" he called out, his voice husky from the kicked-up dust and smoke trapped in with them.

He did not get a response. Who was it that called him then? He used his arm around her to shake her the best he could, given their limited range of motion in these tight quarters. "Mallory!" he called again, trying to rouse her.

After a few silent seconds, she moaned in response and tried to move before realizing how tight they were lodged in. "Wha—Wing?" she answered back, fear lacing her voice.

"I'm here. Are you hurt?"

There was some silence, then: "I don't think so."

Wildwing nodded before realizing how useless the action had been. "Good," he replied back. "So, don't freak out, but I think my force shield is holding a very large chunk of concrete above us."

"What?!" she squeaked, instantly trying to turn in his arms.

"Stop stop stop!" he warned her, that subtle movement enough to shift some heavy objects around them. Without being able to see their surroundings clearly, much less move without fear of being crushed, they were pretty much stuck in their position.

"I heard someone call out, the guys will get us out of here. Just stay calm."

She sighed in frustration. "Easier said than done."

Wildwing was inclined to agree, but opted to take the high road and kept his beak shut. With one of his arms completely occupied with the force shield, he tried to move his other but found his forearm armor to be too bulky. While they weren't completely sandwiched, the heavy debris above them slanted down at their feet and left very little room for adjustments.

The faint blue glow of the shield was heavily masked from being crammed between him and whatever was on top, too, because it did nothing to shine light on their situation.

He sighed again, swallowing hard to fight the claustrophobia threatening to make its way present. "Mal?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you reach the Mask?"

He felt the redhead shift a little in his arms, but she stopped after a moment. "What for?"

"If I can see what's around us a bit better, I might be able to find an area you can dig out of."

"And what about you?"

"Once you're out you can help the others dig me out."

"You're not going to be able to maintain that position for long, Wing."

"Well, my force shield is the only thing between us and crushing death at the moment, so I think I have the motivation to stay put for now."

He could almost feel Mallory roll her eyes at him. Nonetheless she obliged to his request, slowly turning around within his arms so she faced him.

To say it was awkward would be an understatement, especially given their recent tension the past few weeks.

He ignored some other feelings that arose in him as she faced him, her beak now inches from and slightly below his. Her hands gently felt up his neck until she found both sides of the Mask, placing her fingers on the underside to trigger the scanning mechanism. The Mask's eyes lit up, giving their temporary prison an eerie red glow. Through the Mask Wildwing began seeing gridlines as it scanned the topography of their immediate location, its sensors picking up the energy signals of the debris surrounding them.

Wildwing turned his head as best he could to allow the Mask to pick up what was on top of him.

They both tensely waited as the Mask completed its scan.

"Well?" Mallory asked, her voice edgy as she kept her fingers on the Mask to keep it triggered.

Wildwing read the results: "Okay, steel beam above us, plus some drywall. Next to you is some pipes—not too heavy, plumbing maybe. There's some heavier roof panels above that though." He suddenly grunted from pain as the arm above his head started feeling the effects of its awkwardly bent position.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her fingers dropping from the Mask.

"Yeah, just a bit heavy," Wildwing lamely replied. "Above the roof panels looks mostly clear of steel and framework," he continued.

"I can snake through the pipes," Mallory offered.

"I won't be able to guide you very well," Wildwing warned.

"That's fine. Scan again and tell me where they are—I'll manage."

Wildwing could hear some desperation in her voice—he wasn't the only one becoming claustrophobic. He didn't like the idea of Mallory digging out of debris blind, but at this point there wasn't any more favorable options to pick.

He sighed. "Okay, press it again."

Mallory pushed her fingers on the Mask, retriggering the scan and allowing Wildwing to analyze the area. "You're going to stay right until you come to some chairs; above that climb through one; two; three pipes; and go to 11 o'clock position to slip between two panels. Looks like it's just some drywall after that."

"Got it."

He felt Mallory's hands leave his Mask and a surge of worry washed over him unexpectedly. "Just—be careful, okay?"

There was some silence, followed by a sarcastic, "Don't worry, not all my ideas are awful."

Wildwing cringed. She was still angry with him, and rightly so.

His mind didn't have time to wander over his previous stupidity, as his female companion had already slipped out from beneath his arm and began crawling towards the right side of their tiny enclosure. There wasn't much to say in return to her dry statement to him, so he kept his beak shut and watched her carefully.

While the Mask couldn't scan without capacitive touch, it did allow him to see clearly, even as pitch black as their entrapment was.

"It's right next to you, at your 2 o'clock."

Mallory was cautious as she felt around before she moved. She maneuvered over some remnants of chairs and, once her hands found the first pipe, she climbed over it as instructed. As she began feeling around for the second pipe, one of her feet came to rest on the first and it shuttered, startling both occupants.

Despite a gasp from Mallory and a jolt from Wildwing—both expecting the worst—the pipe mercifully settled back into a resting position. After a few tense moments of silence, Mallory allowed herself to brace against it again as she climbed through the other pipes above it.

Wildwing could see a part of the roof panel from his position, but could not see above it. Mallory hesitantly reached out and felt the panel, feeling up high afterwards to find the other one. She judged the spacing with her hands, moving them back and forth to feel how much room there was to slide through.

She then paused, took a deep breath, and quickly hoisted herself through the panels. As soon as she did, the weight of her body shifted the debris and caused everything to fall.

Even as he felt the weight above him shift, Wildwing's fear was for his teammate. "Mallory!"

There was no response as the debris collapsed. Wildwing coughed as dust was kicked up, and the small amount of space he had was swallowed up by chunks of wall and roof.

"Wing!"

It was faint, like last time, but he was conscious enough now to recognize the voice. "Dive!" he called out, fear beginning to paralyze him. His arm above his head was beginning to hurt so bad he wondered if he had broken it.

The debris settled again, leaving him in silence. He groaned and cried out when he tried to move his arm, causing pain to erupt like a lightning bolt from his shoulder down to his back. The weight of the steel beam above him was just too much; if it weren't for the force shield taking a part of the burden off, he hypothesized that his arm would no longer be attached to his body.

There were more muffled voices and crunching sounds from above. Loud thumps followed more rhythmic bangs. Nothing he heard was clear or defined: it felt like someone had stuffed thick rubber plugs into his earholes. With no room to move and no room to breathe, Wildwing began to feel dizzy, his mind barely hanging on to sanity within his new solitary confinement.

Then, finally, the weight above him was shifted off.

"Wing!"

This time the voice was close. He opened his eyes and realized light had penetrated what he thought might've been his final resting place. He felt strong hands push his force shield away.

"Turn it off," someone said.

"I got it," Wildwing raspingly answered, his other arm free to move now that the steel beam wasn't practically sitting in his lap. He reached up and pressed the necessary commands on his forearm, causing the force field to dematerialize.

He groaned as he slowly moved his bent arm back into a more natural position. It was not broken, thankfully, but he was pretty sure he had pulled a muscle in his shoulder.

More hands helped him up and he tried to steady himself, the bright artificial lights from the Aerowing illuminating everything a little too much. He mentally readjusted to his surroundings and suddenly seized in fear.

"Mallory! She—"

"I'm here, Wing," she interrupted him. Relief flooded over him when he turned to her voice. "I got out before it fully collapsed."

He took a deep, shaky breath, nodding to her. She was completely covered in dirt and grime, though he imagined he didn't look too much better. They shared a long glance at one another, Mallory's expression both drained and almost . . . perplexed?

Duke walked up next to her as he weeded through the wreckage. He sniffed the air and looked at Mallory, opting to not reserve the same respect Wildwing had earlier: "Mal-mal, you smell worse than that ale they serve in da Lardose Banks!"

Mallory rolled her eyes exasperatedly and walked away from both of the male ducks, back towards the Aerowing.

Wildwing, feeling the initial adrenaline beginning to wear off, moved his aching shoulder around to try and stretch out the pain. He felt a hand on his other shoulder and turned to see Nosedive.

"Bro, you okay?" the younger duck asked, glancing at Wildwing's odd movements with his arm.

Wildwing had to pause before responding, his mind still reeling and making it hard for him to focus on anything. Aside from his shoulder feeling like it was nearly pulled out of its socket, he was surprisingly unharmed.

"Yeah, think so. Just sore. Everyone else?"

The leader turned to see the rest of the group. Nosedive and Grin looked to be the least battered, remarkably. Neither had a lot of soot on them, aside from Grin's forearms, which probably came from digging Wildwing out of the rubble.

Duke's hair was a mess and his clothes tattered, telling Wildwing that someone or something had gotten the jump on them inside the Aerowing. The ex-thief had walked up to Tanya, whose own outfit was ripped in a few spots. However, there was also a makeshift bandage around her torso with some blood seeping from the side, causing Wildwing to frown at her after he asked his question.

She shrugged him off. "It's just a, uh, scratch; nothing the Medicom can't heal."

Duke rolled his eyes at her. "It's more d'an a scratch, Angel, and if everyone's feelin' up to it I t'ink we should be gettin' the 'ell outta here."

Wildwing nodded in agreement. "We can discuss the details en route; let's move team."


	3. Chapter 3

The journey back was full of chatter. Despite the exhaustion of battle, the entire trip had left the group a little wary of what was to come.

Tidbits of conversation continued to roll around in Wildwing's head:

 _The robots blew open the hatch and got da jump on us._

 _They were def—definitely after the Aerowing._

 _Dr. Droid's design…._

 _But Dr. Droid hates humans … how would he be connected with a strip joint?_

 _They managed to get control of the ship long enough to blow up da club—don't think d'at was d'ere intention though._

 _Yeah, we got outside and they left us alone—they went straight for the Aerowing._

 _T'ere was so much destruction, gettin' Mal out was smart—don't t'ink we would've found you o'herwise._

As they had gone through all the possible scenarios of what had transpired and why, they began playing devil's advocate with one another to try and narrow done what was the most likely reasoning behind tonight's attack.

They were no strangers to traps, but this had felt almost desperate. The machines that attacked them were not that well-built, nor very powerful with their weaponry. The only complex aspect of the plan were the two ladies that had accompanied Alek Baros, as only the Mask would've given them the clue that they weren't human.

But Wildwing couldn't fathom why Alek had antagonized them the way that he did. Why insult Mallory, especially with the beer? If the robots were indeed Dr. Droid's, it was very unlikely Alek Baros was one himself. He was so transfixed with the shape of a body—human or duck apparently—and Dr. Droid was all about perfection in machinery. Could they have teamed up?

Was Dr. Droid so desperate for the Aerowing's parts that he found an unlikely ally?

Wildwing sighed. Maybe he was just looking too much into it. Only one thing was for certain: it had been a desperate attempt at gaining control of the Aerowing, but it had backfired miserably. If Alek Baros was teamed up with Dr. Droid, he imagined the man might be a little peeved that his strip club got destroyed in the attempt.

Overanalyzing things was a bad trait of the leader, and the main cause of why he was on the outs with Mallory.

When they got back to the Pond Wildwing went with Tanya and Mallory to the infirmary to hook Tanya up to the Medicom. The laser burn was in a more private area, so after Wildwing helped set up the machine he would leave to let Mallory assist Tanya in undressing and getting adjusted on the healing device. Tanya was the expert with the Medicom, so it was likely that Wildwing didn't even need to go with them, but as leader he felt compelled to make sure everyone on the team was taken care of.

Tanya insisted that she did not need to be watched, as the machine would only need to run for three hours before she could exit and go to bed. Wildwing was hesitant, but after the initial scan of the Medicom had revealed that the wound only needed to be treated for some minor burns and muscle damage, Wildwing reluctantly agreed.

Mallory did not say a word to him the entire time he was in the infirmary, but there didn't seem to be any anger in the air between them, either. He had made sure to get all the parts to the Medicom up and running, including adjusting the settings after it had provided them the initial results of the required treatment. Once he had finished he had explained to Mallory how to start the Medicom, as well as what to do if some more common errors occurred during the startup process.

She had simply nodded to his instructions and, when he left and told them to COM him for any issues, she gave him a small, albeit brief smile.

It contained that same, melancholic expression he had seen earlier.

He felt like such a jerk.

* * *

Wildwing's sigh was loud and long as he paced in his bedroom. It was late, but his mind would not shut off. After unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep for about an hour, he gave up and changed into workout gear.

He debated going up to the surface to practice on the ice, but right now a more mindless activity like strength training sounded more inviting. He was already thinking way too much as it was.

His shoulder was still a bit sore, but aside from maybe pulling it he thankfully had no other residual injuries from being buried beneath half a strip club.

The walk to the gym required passing the long hallway of bedrooms, through the Recreation Room or Rec Room as they called it, taking an elevator down one floor, and crossing another hallway. Their gym was large to accommodate all their interests, and housed next to the underground pool and spa.

Despite the gym having two large mats for sparring, two large areas with dummies for practicing, another large area for boxing with a heavy bag, and various weights and machines scattered throughout, Wildwing only ever used the gym when he was feeling restless. He liked weights, but he ended up buying his own set for his room. While not a complete introvert, Wildwing usually preferred the solitude when he worked out; Grin said it was a form of meditation, which he was inclined to believe.

Whether it was weights, jogging outside, or practicing on the ice, Wildwing used the time to reflect. Occasionally after a hard battle he would opt to relax in the spa, but he'd only ever do it if it was empty.

In his defense, a group of six very different ducks living in close quarters would probably make anyone an introvert, eventually.

His mind continued to wander as he walked. No one seemed to be up as he passed through the Rec Room. Tonight's fiasco with the robots and nearly being shot to death probably exhausted most of the team, as battles tended to do. The near-death experience was not exactly uncommon for any of the ducks, but it never made Wildwing feel any less stressed when they were put in a situation like that.

Tanya's healing time with the Medicom was done half an hour ago and Wildwing had already used his COM to make sure everything had gone well. She sounded exhausted when she spoke to him, but assured him that she was feeling much better, had a clean bill of health from the Medicom scan, and would be going to straight to bed.

Wildwing had always been protective of friends and family, and—aside from his brother, who _was_ family—this team fit somewhere in between. As diverse as they all were—and as often as they bickered at one another—they made a formidable force that worked well together.

And then Wildwing had to go and ruin it with one of them.

He let out another sigh as he entered the elevator. He had always had a slight crush on Mallory. She was striking to him, and her temper didn't turn him off like it did so many others. He had seen her progress with controlling her anger these past couple of months: she did her best to keep it in check, and she swallowed her pride and apologized way more than any of the other teammates did, himself included.

She was trying, and that was attractive to him in ways he didn't think he could express. Her positive traits shined even brighter: her protectiveness of the team, even with Nosedive and the endless amounts of pranks he loved to pull; her fervent determination to do right; her sarcasm that most lumped into her temper was actually a way for her to diffuse it, if anyone ever bothered to notice; and her encouragement to the rest of the team, another mannerism the team disregarded.

She was always complimenting them on the ice after games, or even after a hard battle, and most of the team shrugged it off. But if she developed a temper about something they'd give her an earful. Labelling was one of the biggest problems their team needed to conquer: Mallory was the military brat that had a temper that could not be controlled; Tanya was the brainiac that couldn't have fun; Duke was the suave ex-thief that couldn't be taken seriously; Nosedive was the teenage prankster that would never act like an adult; Grin was the pacifist that would never make sense; and Wildwing was a stick-in-the-mud who only cared about practice and safety.

Yeah, they might have been the key traits of his respective team members, but it wasn't all they were. And the sooner they realized that the sooner they would get along so much better than they had in this relatively short time on Earth.

Wildwing's head leaned back against the elevator wall as he thought about the argument he had had with Mallory a few weeks ago.

When they had first arrived on Earth he had started out pairing her with himself on a lot of missions, until he heard his brother make a snide remark about it. A part of Wildwing felt like he was wearing his heart on his sleeve, and he was worried that he was letting his feelings get in the way of leading the team. Of course he later learned that his brother made a snide remark for just about anything, including anyone he was paired up with or _not_ paired up with. Nosedive gave flack for being teamed up with basically anyone but Wildwing or Grin, and made sure everyone knew about it, too.

Everything was still relatively new and foreign to these surviving six ducks. Wildwing did not feel qualified to lead, even after he left the team and the group scrambled to stop the giant Alterian Creeper tentacle plant that had covered half of Anaheim. No one was really ready for their position, either, and the tensions were pretty damn high when they weren't fighting a megalomaniac or playing hockey.

Unfortunately, Wildwing's handling of his crush only worsened with time. Three months in he began to change how he treated Mallory, Nosedive's snarky comments leading Wildwing to be afraid that the rest of the team would start to see bias in his choices. But when he started pairing himself up with everyone but Mallory, he also started ignoring her advice to try and not show favoritism.

Her attitude after that became much worse, and all because of him. She was angry that he suddenly stopped listening to her, and rightly so. They'd been on Earth for six months now, and a few weeks ago his selfish actions had caused her to finally lose her temper at him. They were on a mission planning their next move and Wildwing had uncharismatically shot down an idea Mallory had. He had gotten into a terrible habit of ignoring her, and when Tanya brought up the redhead's idea again a few minutes later he agreed to it without thinking, causing Mallory to snap.

 _"Is there a reason why I'm suddenly toxic to you?!"_

Those words echoed in Wildwing's head and made him inwardly groan with embarrassment anytime he thought about them.

He couldn't explain himself, unless he wanted to admit his infatuation and his foolish attempts to cover it up, so he apologized profusely and tried to make amends again. Like rewinding a clock, he began pairing her with him when he felt the situation best, though this time around she was a lot less receptive to it. She wouldn't even offer advice anymore unless he basically ordered it from her. He had left a permanent stain on their friendship, and in the worst way.

Present Wildwing shook his head, not exactly enjoying his trip down memory lane. It constantly ate away at him and there wasn't much he could do about it unless he confessed his feelings to her. While even rejection at that point in time would at least provide some closure to his bizarre treatment of her, Wildwing feared it would cause a bigger problem throughout the team as a whole.

But things couldn't continue on as they had been. Mallory's attitude had become sour enough that the entire team felt the effects, and she had begun to close herself off to everyone. While the team had certainly witnessed her meltdown at him a few weeks ago, none of them had been aware of how rooted the cause of it was. A comment later made by Nosedive made it clear they thought it was just Mallory being Mallory, which made the whole situation even worse.

There was only one way to fix it—if it was even fixable—and Wildwing had already cowered away from the idea for far too long.

As if fate decided to help him along, Wildwing quickly found out that he hadn't been the only one with the idea to use the gym and release some pent-up energy. The silent hiss from the gym door opening did not alert the other duck of the leader's arrival. Wildwing floundered at the entrance, unsure whether he should just turn around and leave before he was noticed.

Despite his best intentions, however, Wildwing couldn't help but admire the redhead's grace as she worked out.

Punch combo. Roundhouse kick. Stoop, block, uppercut.

Wildwing kept to the side of the gymnasium, impressed, as Mallory waylaid on a heavy bag across the room.

She was in the zone and seemed unobservant to the rest of her surroundings.

He was definitely surprised to see the redhead up. She usually was the first to sleep and the first to wake, thanks to her military background. The fact that she was up this late at night and was apparently oblivious to his presence, however, shot up some warning flags in Wildwing's head.

Her hands lacked the usual heavy gloves one would wear when boxing. She had instead opted for a light pair of fingerless gloves, most likely the ones with a little bit of gel in the knuckle area to help soften impact. While not ideal, Wildwing understood the necessity: it wasn't like you'd be wearing heavy protective gloves when fighting enemies in the real world.

Crouch, jump, kick; backhand, overhand, straight punch combo.

It took him a few seconds to find the courage to stay. He took another step forward and let the door automatically shut behind him, waiting to see if that would gather her attention. When it did not, Wildwing dropped his water bottle and towel off to the side and approached the redhead to let her know he was there.

There was suddenly a bit more fervor in her punching and kicking, however, causing him to pause in his advancement towards her.

Kick, kick, kick—punch, punch, punchpunchpunchpunch—

Mallory let out a frustrated yell and began carelessly throwing punches at the bag. The bag swung precariously, even with the hanging weight on it, and one particular punch made contact with the bag as it came swinging back at her.

She cursed and brought her hand back in pain, but instead of stopping she threw another punch, even harder this time.

"Mallory!" Wildwing called out, but she didn't hear. The thin fingerless gloves could not hold up to the amount of force she was putting into her throws—surely she was injuring herself!

PUNCHPUNCHPUNCHPUNCHPUNCHPUNCH— _SNAP_!

While the chain holding the heavy bag up was strong and could endure the assault Mallory was giving it, the regularly abused fabric of the heavy bag itself could not. They had already replaced the bag three times following Grin's outburst at the film studio, so it wouldn't be surprising to assume this one had already taken some abuse as well. Whatever the cause, following the loud snap the fabric of the bag popped open, ripping down the entire vertical seam and causing thick filling to spill out.

The sudden loss of weight stopped the bag from swinging maniacally, causing Mallory's next punch to completely miss. With a startled holler the redhead fell forward, tripping over the standing weight of the heavy bag and falling face-first onto the mat. The dense filling of the bag added insult to injury by dropping into a haphazardous heap on top of her.

"Mal!" Wildwing ran up to her as she slowly pulled herself up onto her hands and knees. She heard her name this time and looked up at Wildwing, surprised.

"What are you doing here?" she asked almost accusingly.

"I tried calling out to you," Wildwing defended himself without really meaning to. He offered a hand to her but she refused it, electing to drag herself to her feet on her own accord.

She was covered in sweat and had the bag's filling stuck to her everywhere. She tried but failed to brush the fuzzy stuff off of her.

She looked ridiculous, but Wildwing found no humor in the situation when he got a look at her face. Despite the heavy sweat and the quick brush of her eyes with her arm, he could clearly see redness in her eyes and the stray tears still running down her feathers.

Wildwing stood next to her awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

His worry eventually won out, however, when he glanced at her gloves. "Let me see your hands."

Mallory, realizing that brushing herself off was doing little to remove the heavy bag's stuffing, was currently trying to act nonchalant about the whole situation. She had obviously not expected anyone to see what had transpired, much less anticipated the heavy bag's explosion of fluff.

"What? No," she answered angrily, crossing her arms over herself. "I'm fine, Wing; Grin must've used the bag recently, is all."

"You've been crying," he directly commented without meaning to, ignoring her previous statement regarding the big duck's recent anger management issues. Her constant attitude had made him more brusque with her, an instinctual and defensive tactic of his. He shouldn't have called her out on it, but he kept up pretenses and waited for a response.

Her eyes widened at his blunt statement and she had no immediate retort for him.

"Let me see your hands, Mallory," he said again, trying his best to keep his voice neutral.

"Wing—"

"That's an order."

This time Mallory's expression turned into slight hurt at his clear abuse of his ranking to her. Wildwing hated doing it, but his concern over the female mallard won out over chivalry.

Mallory sniffed in frustration and turned her gaze down and to the side as she held out her gloved hands to him.

Wildwing brushed off some of the larger chunks of filling and sighed at the blood completely staining the once gray fabric. He carefully undid the velcro of one of the gloves and pulled.

Mallory inadvertently hissed before clamping her beak shut. She did turn to watch him, however.

The gloves were sticking to her, but Wildwing firmly pulled on the fabric to turn it inside-out and finally freed her hand from the garment. He dropped the glove and surveyed the damage.

Even through the peach feathers he could see heavy bruising and swelling beneath the knuckles. Every single one had split open, blood oozing slowly out of the inflamed skin.

He shook his head and grabbed the other hand, removing the glove and revealing the same injuries, albeit slightly less since it was her non-dominant hand.

Wildwing's gaze moved from her hands to her face, watching as she looked at her knuckles with a pained expression.

"We need to get these cleaned up."

Mallory roughly pulled her hands away from Wildwing. "I'll take care of it."

"Mallory—"

"Look, you asked to see my hands and you did. I'll clean this mess up in the morning." The female mallard brushed past Wildwing towards the doorway leading out.

Wildwing turned, watching her. "Is this about what happened at the club?"

Mallory slowed and looked back at him. "It's not about _anything_ , Wing. The stupid bag broke."

Wildwing took the chance to catch back up with her. "If that's what you want to tell the others that's fine, but I saw what caused the bag to break."

"Aren't I humiliated enough?" Mallory spat at him, her arms crossing over herself. "Are you going to order me to talk about my feelings, too?"

Wildwing's expression softened. "Mal, come on—I'm worried about you, is all."

Mallory's eyes flashed with rage. "That's convenient for you, isn't it?"

"What?"

The redhead shook her head in disbelief. "I don't know what your game is, Wing, but you can stop trying to pretend that you give a shit about me."

Wildwing felt his heart drop into his stomach. He swallowed hard and took a step towards her. "Mallory, I know I screwed up. I'm sorry. I can't tell you enough how sorry I am."

"You don't need to apologize, you made it very clear what my position on this team is," she responded icily, taking the chance to turn away and head towards the door again.

Wildwing jogged the rest of the way up to her and grabbed her arm. "I was being stupid, I thought I was showing favoritism—"

"Right, because if I'm treated like an _equal_ on this team suddenly it's favoritism?!" she yelled, cutting off his statement and furiously removing her arm from Wildwing's grasp. Their proximity to the door caused the gym door to hiss open next to them.

Wildwing felt his breath hitch at what she said. Did she really think that? "I know I hurt you—"

She glared at him. " _I'm fine_."

Despite her hostile reply and livid stare, Mallory's eyes were still glazed over and made her features seem so much more vulnerable then he'd ever seen her.

Wildwing felt defeated. Before he could respond, though, she had used the opportunity to storm out of the gym.

"Mallory!"

He took a few running steps after her in the hallway, but stopped when he saw that the corridor was empty. She had disappeared quickly, either cutting through the pool area or taking the nearby stairs instead of the elevator.

Wildwing took a deep breath and cursed. Why couldn't he just _tell_ her?


	4. Chapter 4

Wildwing shook his head at himself as he walked back to the elevators. He had stayed in the gym for a while afterwards, releasing his frustration with weightlifting. He worked himself to near exhaustion, putting way too much weight on the bar and probably straining his back in the process.

But it felt good to focus on something else. If he let his mind wander a wave of guilt would wash over him and make his breath catch in his throat, a reaction that he had already dealt with a couple of times when he let his eyes fall on the punching bag remains across the room.

Was he the reason she had been crying? He knew he hadn't been fair to her, but it wasn't like he didn't treat her like an equal.

He had only discounted her advice a couple of times, as most of the team's battles had a natural progression from alarm to arrest and didn't require much planning in advance.

But Mallory had come from a past where she had to constantly prove herself. He remembered back to a comment made by Canard, the same day Wildwing had met Mallory, about her famous McMallard surname being a big reason why others believed she got into the Special Forces in the first place.

After all, when your dad's a general and your brothers are captains, getting into a competitive military program becomes a whole lot easier. Getting made fun of for it, or not treated seriously because of it, would probably become second nature to those that didn't know the redhead.

Wildwing flinched as he entered the elevator, staring at the keypad blankly.

He hated seeing her hurt like that. As much as he loathed to admit it, he knew he was probably a big cause for her lashing out at everyone.

It wasn't like he hadn't apologized profusely to her, though. For the past few weeks, ever since she had blown up at him, he'd been trying to rectify the situation. He had apologized at least a dozen times, including tonight; he had begun pairing her with him on missions again, much to her chagrin; and he had been consistent in probing her for ideas, even when it wasn't that necessary.

But no, she had to be stubborn about the whole damn thing. Drake knows they all dealt with issues from back home, unfinished business and whatnot—after all, they left in the middle of a war for crying out loud. His stupid actions may have been extra sensitive to her thanks to her past, but that didn't mean he had been purposely trying to wound her that way.

She was being obstinate. Relentless, infuriating, opinionated—

But Drake, she was beautiful. Even with ridiculous amounts of fuzz adorning her body like ornaments on a tree, sweat making her feathers oily, her hair matted every which way, and some seriously red puffy eyes, she was stunning to him.

When she wasn't being maddening beyond comprehension she could actually be a lot of fun to be around. They had a lot in common, between simple likes and dislikes, hobbies, food preferences, even Earth style they agreed on a lot…

Wildwing felt like he'd been staring at the keypad forever. Snapping out of his long progression of thoughts, he decided to take a chance and pushed the button to the ground floor.

* * *

The infirmary was housed next to the garage for quick access during emergencies. Chances were that, if one of them got seriously hurt, it'd be on a mission outside of the Pond.

And every second counted when it came to getting somebody attached to the Medicom.

Wildwing didn't know why, but gut instinct told him to check there. He had just taught Mallory how to use the machine, and he was sure that even she was aware of the seriousness of her injury, especially if she was to play hockey tomorrow evening.

The double doors to the large medbay slid open quietly as he entered. The main lights were off, but a side light next to one of the Medicoms was still on.

He walked over and breathed out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Mallory was standing at the computer, typing and clicking away.

"Hey," Wildwing said, not wanting to surprise her twice in one evening.

She glanced at him and back at the screen with irritation but did not say anything. Wildwing took that as good of a sign as any and closed the distance between them until he could see the monitor she was looking at.

There was an error message on it that she was trying to fix.

"You need to prime the nanobots," Wildwing offered gently, pointing to a flashing light on the machine. "They need to be charged."

Mallory followed Wildwing's finger with her eyes and let out a low growl. She nonetheless went over and pressed the button, causing the Medicom to hum to life and begin charging.

The error message on the monitor cleared and Mallory returned to the keyboard, reading the next set of instructions. Her hands had some gauze wrapped around them to quell the bleeding, which made her typing much slower and sloppier.

Wildwing took a chance and asked, "Would you like me to…?"

There was a loud sigh, but Mallory took a step back and silently allowed him to take over.

He quickly walked up to the computer and checked what she had done so far. "Okay, it looks like you scanned and primed; we just need to adjust the settings and add an antibiotic to its injection chamber."

Mallory sat back on the Medicom gurney as Wildwing went to retrieve the medicine. When he returned he brought with him a first aid kit, as well.

"What's that for?" she finally broke her silence.

"The machine anticipates that you've already cleaned the wound—otherwise the nanobots spend too much time clearing the debris and errors out when it runs out of charge too quickly."

"Oh," Mallory answered, shifting slightly in her seat. "I'm never going to get the hang of this stuff."

"That's not true; I only taught you the basics tonight," Wildwing argued back as he typed in the settings on the computer. "You already had this set up and ready to go—I barely had to do anything."

Mallory didn't debate him anymore. She watched him as he finished setting up the machine and turned his attention to opening and sorting through the contents of the first aid kit.

As Wildwing worked he offhandedly noticed that Mallory had not come straight to the infirmary after their argument. She must have taken a shower, as her hair was still slightly damp, causing it to not have its usual bounce in the front. She had a faint smell of some kind of fruit—which he guessed was whatever soap she used—and instead of her workout gear she had put on a loose t-shirt and sweatpants.

Despite the simple look Wildwing had a hard time not staring at her. He mentally cleared his mind and focused on the task.

He ushered her to bring her hands up to allow him to take a closer look at them. She hesitated but eventually submitted so he could remove the messy bandaging.

Wildwing pulled gently once he had unwrapped the fabric to her skin and feathers, apologizing when it stuck to her and she gasped from the pain. Eventually he was able to remove all the dressing to expose the full extent of the injury.

Her knuckles were now clean of the punching bag stuffing, but there was remnants of dried blood and the swelling appeared to have gotten slightly worse. He hummed in concern at them.

"I'm glad you decided to take care of them tonight," he told her.

She didn't answer him, instead keeping her gaze on her hands.

Wildwing grabbed some disinfecting solution and a gauze, squirting the former into the latter. He gently grabbed one of her hands and used his other to blot the fluid onto the open cuts.

Mallory inadvertently jerked at the stinging sensation but did not pull her hand away. She took in a sharp intake of breath but remained still, allowing Wildwing to work without interruption.

When the gauze was dirty he tossed it into the trashcan and retrieved another, also soaking it with the fluid before using it to cleanse the wounds. The process was repeated a few more times before he eventually broke the silence:

"I'm sorry about earlier."

She looked up at him, her expression guardingly neutral. "I … I was just worked up."

"About what?"

She hesitated. "The club."

"He was just trying to ruffle your feathers."

"He succeeded."

Wildwing frowned slightly. "Nothing he said was true."

"It's nothing I'm not used to, but it just gets old … getting looked at like a piece of flesh."

"Not used to?" Wildwing repeated. "Are you talking about the Special Forces?"

Mallory looked up at him briefly but returned her focus to her hands. "The military isn't all that different in that regard, unfortunately."

Wildwing couldn't find his voice right away, and when he did he could only ask, "They … they did that to you?" He hadn't meant to sound incredulous, but the thought of others treating a fellow classmate—a soldier—like that, made his blood boil.

She did not answer him right away, a disconcerting answer in its own right. He took the length of silence to calm down and refocus his anger on finishing disinfecting her wounds.

When he was done he tossed the last of the dirty gauze into the trashcan and removed the first aid kid from the cot. "Go ahead and lay down with your arms out in front of you."

Mallory did as was instructed, lying on her stomach and placing her hands in the spot usually reserved for the head. Wildwing walked up and lightly placed the belt around her wrists to keep her hands from moving, making sure to leave the buckle loose enough so she could pull them out if necessary.

As he turned his attention back to the computer Mallory spoke up: "Wildwing?"

The captain glanced down at her.

"I'm sorry about earlier, too."

"You have nothing to apologize for, Mal."

"I shouldn't have said what I did. It wasn't true—I was just mouthing off."

Wildwing shook his head as he completed the Medicom startup. "You had every right to."

There was a shift in her position as Wildwing walked up to her. She briefly looked up at him and asked, "What … what did you mean when you said…." Her voice faded and she glanced towards the ground, her voice jittery at the end of her unfinished question. Wildwing felt a wave of anxiety wash over him, waiting for her to finish.

She sighed, shaking her head at herself. "Never mind."

"What is it?"

"Nothing. I'm just confused."

Wildwing swallowed hard, having a damn good idea about what she was confused about. The Medicom distracted both of them, however, as it hummed to life. The machine's large wheel began to turn and a smaller contraption that looked like a hollow box positioned itself over Mallory's hands. A focused light and laser from inside the mobile part of the machine turned on and created an eerie blue glow, its slow movement causing shadows to play across the walls as it focused energy on her hands in a rhythmic pattern.

The technology was some of Puckworld's most advanced, and was relatively new prior to the war. It had been in the more innovative cultures' hospitals for a few years before everything became destroyed, and the government had been continually improving its functionality by recently adding artificial intelligence to the nanobots.

The Aerowing had stored these new A.I. nanobots—the main component of the Medicom that could not be easily replicated—and the schematics to build the machine in case a rudimentary sickbay had to be created out in the field. When they had arrived on Earth, Tanya used it to her advantage and created multiple Medicoms that were connected and shared the micromachinery.

She also created an advanced security system for it, as the nanobots themselves were impossible to duplicate with the materials available on Earth. Despite its amazing capabilities, the machine did have limitations on what it could heal, but when it did repair it did so with amazing speed. It turned serious wounds and long rehabilitations into minor injuries with only a day or two of recuperation, something the ducks had already taken advantage of countless of times. Without it they would have to rely on human medicine and knowledge, which was terrifying when you were an alien with a drastically different genetic makeup.

Wildwing's mind had wandered as he watched the machine, Mallory's earlier statement floating in his thoughts and making him feel dizzy from nervousness. He finally returned his attention back to her, mentally preparing himself and trying to find the best words to explain to her.

"Mallory, what I said earlier—about favoritism—I thought that I was … that I was pairing you with me too much, or holding your advice above the others. I … I thought that I was wearing my—"

 _EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO—_

Wildwing's confession was rudely cut off by the sound of Drake One's alarm. He jumped out of instinct and Mallory almost pulled her hands out of the Medicom's device, but stopped herself just in time.

There were some loud clicks that resonated throughout the room and the main lights to the infirmary went off, leaving them in complete darkness.

"What—"

The emergency power kicked on quickly, the room lighting back up with a dim bulb that was connected to the room's built-in generator.

However, the Medicom stayed off, which was unusual: the generator was attached to it too, so why hadn't it kicked back on?

Wildwing opened his COM but found the device to be off. "What the hell?"

"What's wrong?"

"Is your COM working?"

Mallory tried to pull her hands out to see, but was unable to do so with the Medicom's arm still hovering centimeters above them. "Uh, a little help here?"

Wildwing grabbed the mobile part of the Medicom and slowly pushed it aside, its locking mechanism still triggered and hard to manually bypass. He nonetheless got it away from her hands and undid the latch, allowing Mallory to sit up and check her own communication unit.

"Nope," she answered and closed it. "Was there an attack on us?"

"I didn't feel or hear anything, but only one way to find out. Come on." Wildwing hurried over to the infirmary door and pressed the button to open it.

Nothing happened.

"Can we pry it open?" Mallory asked, close behind him.

Wildwing answered her question by placing his hands between the border of the two panels that made up the infirmary door. He grunted and pried them apart about an inch before an electrical shock was generated.

"Agh!"

Wildwing fell back from the forceful wave of energy that coursed through him, the door closing and undoing the gap he had managed to open it to.

"Wing!"

Mallory came up to him and kneeled down as he brought a hand to his head.

"Ow," he simply replied. He allowed the redhead to help him back up to a standing position.

When he was on his own two feet again, Mallory turned to the door and inspected it. "That was our security system. Someone's turned on the Pond's internal defense."

"Which means we've been infiltrated," Wildwing finished for her.


	5. Chapter 5

_Bbrrrrng!_

Wildwing and Mallory looked at each other incredulously before looking at the source of the noise.

 _Bbrrrrng!_

A landline telephone was ringing somewhere on the other side of the infirmary. The two occupants of the room quickly made their way over to it.

It was attached to a wall in the corner of the room, well-hidden and definitely unused, at least until now.

Wildwing picked it up. "Hello?"

"Wing! Are you guys okay?"

Nosedive was on the other end of the line. "Yeah, we're okay. What about you?" Wildwing asked, worry etching his voice.

"We're fine. What attacked you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You and Mal are in the infirmary, right?"

"Yeah. . . ."

"That's where the intruder is, according to Drake One. Was it Chameleon? Siege? What were you guys doing in there anyway?"

Wildwing had to shake his head at his brother's tirade of questions. "Baby Bro, slow down. Nothing attacked us. Mallory needed to use the Medicom and the whole place just shut down on us. We _thought_ there was some kind of intrusion elsewhere."

There was some commotion on the line, followed by the fading of Nosedive's bickering before he heard Tanya's voice: "Wing?"

"Yeah?"

"Drake One, uh, is pinpointing the source of intrusion to the in—inf—med bay. What were you doing before the alarm went off?"

Wildwing glanced at Mallory, who was watching him curiously. She'd only been getting one side of the conversation.

"We were using the Medicom."

"Who was?"

"Mallory."

"What happened?"

Wildwing sighed, feeling under the microscope from the duck next to him and the duck on the phone. "She hurt her hands while punching. They were pretty swollen and needed healing before tomorrow's game."

"You mean, uh, tonight's game?"

Wildwing frowned. What time was it? "Whatever. Tanya, what's going on?"

"So you, uh, turned the machine on and the alarm went off right after?"

"Pretty close after, anyways."

"Okay. Do you have the Mask?"

Damn it. "No, I was working out."

"Damn it," Tanya voiced his inner dialogue. "Ok, so—uh—here's the deal. Mallory can't, uh, hear me, right?"

Wildwing was becoming a bit more concerned at the direction of this conversation. "No," he carefully answered.

"Good. She's either a, uh, robot, or got some sort of virus attached to her that tried to, um, take over the Medicom."

Wildwing was a bit frozen at those words. What the hell was he supposed to say that? "Uh, could you elaborate, Tanya?"

"Look, it's probably a virus. But Drake One says th—that there was an intrusion on the premises, and it homed in on the infirmary and put it in, um, lockdown mode.

"Then, I just, uh, tried to access the Medicom logs and Drake One locked me out, finding the source of the—uh, intrusion to be there. A virus."

"Okay, but what the hell does that have to do with, you know…?"

"She was the link. She got on the Medicom and transferred something. The, uh, only way to do that is to be a robot or have a, y'know, robot part on you that does it."

Wildwing realized that his redheaded occupant was becoming inpatient with the cryptic one-sided conversation: she had her arms crossed and was tapping her foot mercilessly against the floor. It wouldn't be long before she tried to snatch the phone from him.

"Well, option one isn't possible. Machines don't bleed."

Unfortunately, even that statement was enough to alert Mallory. She glared at Wildwing. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded.

"Tanya, can you hold on a second?"

Wildwing dropped the phone from his earhole and sheepishly grinned at Mallory.

She did not return the gesture.

He dropped the smile and cut to the chase: "The source of the intrusion is here, which explains the lockdown mode and the lack of wireless communication."

Mallory frowned and looked around, shaking her head. "There's … no one here."

"Tanya says it's a virus that went in through the Medicom."

Donning began to change Mallory's expression. "From … from me using it?"

Wildwing nodded. "Obviously you're not a robot, but something went from you to the Medicom and tried to take over."

"Whatever it is, is uh, strong too," Tanya chimed in from the telephone.

Wildwing, surprised at hearing her voice, brought the handset back to his face. "You heard me?!"

"Wing, it's a telephone; all you did was move your head away. Anyhow, it's uh, very strong. Completely overtook the Medicom's systems."

The captain cringed. "The nanobots?"

"Oh, they're still there. Whether we can, uh, salvage them is another story. But we're lucky the Medicoms are on a, uh, separate system. If this virus had gotten into Drake One … the entire Pond would have, uh, turned against us."

"Whoa."

"Yeah."

"All right, so what do we do?"

"I need to know the source of the, uh, virus. If it's a tr—transmitter on Mallory, we can possibly disable it there by sending out a counter-virus on the, uh, same wireless connection. Or if it's, uh, implanted in Mallory, we just need to, you know, cut it out and deal with it.

"Whatever it is, it's, uh, continually getting power from somewhere. The Medicom logs show that it successfully disabled it but that it ended, uh, ended up coming back online somehow."

Wildwing groaned a bit, rubbing his eyes with his hands. "Okay, so, how can we scan Mallory?"

"Without the Mask you, uh, can't."

"Well, then, what do you propose?"

"You just need to check, you know, everywhere, to see if she's got something attached to her. Or check injuries to see if anything looks like a, uh, injection."

"Yeah, I'm thinking Mallory isn't going to be keen on being strip-searched, here."

"THAT'S IT!"

Mallory yanked the phone from Wildwing and brought it to her. "Tanya, what the HELL are you suggesting?!"

Wildwing had to laugh a little as he walked away from the phone conversation. The entire situation seemed otherworldly, to the point that he almost felt like he was dreaming. He was locked in a room with his crush, who he had almost bared his soul to before being rudely interrupted, and now his teammate just told him to search her entire body for something akin to a microchip or—even better—a needleprick.

Yeah, he had to be dreaming.

He decided to occupy his time with checking the Medicom. If Mallory had been unwittingly carrying a transmitter of some kind, perhaps it was still on the machine rather than on her form.

Wildwing felt along the gurney, checked the keyboard and mouse, and then followed the wiring to the machine itself, checking for anything odd or seemingly out of place. He felt along the arm of the Medicom, as well as the small mobile contraption that had hovered over Mallory's hands, making sure to check underneath it where the actual contact with Mallory had been made.

Nothing.

He sighed and looked back up as Mallory walked up to him, her arms crossed.

"Very funny," she deadpanned.

Wildwing shrugged but smiled nevertheless. "The suggestion was a little offensive, don't you think?"

"Tanya has a one-track mind, so it probably didn't even occur to her… in her defense," Mallory added as an afterthought. She gingerly felt her forearms, her knuckles still exposed and swollen. "I'm pretty sure I didn't get injected with anything … I mean, besides tonight we haven't had any fights since … what? Two weeks ago?"

"And you've had Drake One duty since then," Wildwing added. "The virus would've gotten out then, if it could have."

"So it had to have been from tonight. But I took a shower when I got back from the club, since, well—you know. Anything that could've got transferred onto me should've been washed away."

Wildwing paused, still looking at Mallory but thoughts going a mile a minute.

"Wing?"

A thought occurred to him, back when Tanya had first transferred the nanobots from the Aerowing to the Medicom. Wildwing had expected to move a large battery of some kind, but when he went to help her it was in a jar of gel, no bigger than a finger.

They were microscopic, she said, so the gel housed millions upon millions of them. They could imbed into your skin and get into your bloodstream and the most you would feel was an itch.

"Nanobots!"

Mallory, watching Wildwing perplexed, arched an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"Nanobots wouldn't wash away. Remember what Tanya told us? About the Medicom when she was building it?" Wildwing's voice was excited as he hurried back to the telephone, Mallory trailing behind him.

"That they're … nanobots?" Mallory offered, obviously not remembering.

"They're microscopic, they can get into your bloodstream without you knowing, and the easiest way to transfer them is via _liquid_."

"The beer," Mallory followed along, realization finally striking. "Drake, they're still in me?!" She looked down at herself and made a face.

Wildwing was already dialing the phone number to their hotline. "Probably not. They were probably all transferred to the Medicom when we hooked you up to it."

Tanya answered and Wildwing quickly explained his theory to her. Unfortunately, Tanya's response was anything but hopeful.

"That means we, uh, have no choice."

"No choice?"

"Nanobots are too small to destroy, and too smart to, uh, re-infect. The only way to destroy them is with an EMP."

"EMP?"

"Electromag—magnetic Pulse."

"But that'll destroy _all_ the machinery."

"Yep."

Wildwing sighed. "Can't we hook up the Medicom and—"

"If we restore power to it we will give it, um, access to the network again. It's just a hop from there to, uh, Drake One. Our security system went into lockdown j-just in time. If we override anything we will most likely, uh, spread the virus and lose control of our systems."

"We're going to lose control of the system if we detonate an EMP in here, too!"

Mallory was trying to follow along the best she could and seemed to understand what an EMP was despite her love-hate relationship with technology. When she heard the acronym she groaned and rubbed the top of her beak in aggravation, walking away.

"Not the whole system. The walls of the Pond are EMP-proof. We just, uh, set one off in your room."

"What about the Medicom? The nanobots? All your gear?"

"Well, uh, stuff in the cabinets are okay. They're made out of the same alloy as the walls, which his heavy in, uh, copper. But we need the EMP to de-destroy the Medicom."

"We'll lose our healing technology," Wildwing confirmed in a statement.

"Yeah."

He sighed heavily and looked over at Mallory, who had her arms crossed and was pacing angrily.

"Tell us what to do, Tanya."

* * *

Wildwing hunkered down with Mallory behind a laboratory benchtop turned on its side. The only thing inside the infirmary was an EMP grenade, one which Tanya had purchased from Lectric Land and had tinkered with to try and turn it into a puck for their weapons.

The infirmary was next door to Tanya's lab, and as a scientist with a major hoarding problem, a lot of her equipment and purchases had slowly made its way over to the infirmary as extra storage space.

Unfortunately, this particular grenade was exactly what the name implied: an explosive device. It required a chemical explosion to generate enough power to produce the electromagnetic pulse, which meant they had to set off a small bomb inside the infirmary.

The grenade was simple enough: Wildwing attached a remote activator to it, placed it next to the Medicom, and both he and Mallory created a barricade on the other side of the room to protect themselves.

Mallory had been pretty quiet since the phone conversation. She had followed along with Wildwing's instructions but had kept mum on anything else.

"You ready?" he asked her as he placed his finger on the activation switch.

She sighed. "I guess so."

"Everything okay?"

She gave the leader a side glance. "Aside from being the reason we're destroying our only means of healing while in a continual power struggle with the last Saurian Overlord and his goons, I'm just peachy."

Wildwing gave her an exasperated look. "Mal, come on. It isn't your fault."

"Sure it's not. At least until someone really needs the machine and it's a life or death situation. Then we'll see whose fault it is." She looked away from him when she said the last sentence, a scowl still adorning her features but obviously directed at herself.

Wildwing inwardly cringed but did not respond. There was nothing he could say to persuade her at this point, anyways. He took a quick look above the table to make sure everything was in place before turning his attention back to her. "Keep your head down and ears plugged; Tanya said the explosion won't be that big, but it will be loud."

Mallory nodded, carefully plugging her earholes with her fingers without moving her knuckles too much. _So much for getting that injury fixed_ , Wildwing thought sullenly.

He plugged his own earholes with his fingers, making sure to keep one finger posed over the activator switch still clutched in his palm.

He bent down low and pressed the button, instantly feeling the shockwave and heat that followed. The table they were hiding behind pushed against them and they slid with it a foot before stopping.

Smoke filled the room and the alarm went off again. The built-in sprinklers were triggered and began raining on them.

Wildwing coughed from the smoke, cautiously peering out over the table. The floor was blackened where the grenade had been, ground zero clearly visible from his viewpoint. The Medicoms were nothing more than debris at this point, and even a few cabinets had been maimed, taking their electronic components with them.

The electromagnetic pulse itself, however, would not have been felt by them. He assumed it went off, but at this point only bringing the system back online would tell them.

 _Bbrrrrng!_

And despite it all, apparently the damn phone survived.

 _Bbrrrrng!_

"Hello?"

"You guys okay?"

Nosedive again. "Yeah, Baby Bro, we're good."

"Taunny's bringing the network back online now."

"What if the EMP didn't work?"

"The Mask confirmed it. She scanned it when you set the bomb off."

Wildwing frowned. "Can't the Mask see the nanobots, then?"

"See? I asked Taunny that too and then she went into this whole tirade about how the Mask is only going to pick up the nanobots if they are active, which I guess they aren't when they're hiding in a duck or offline from the security defense. And then I made the mistake of asking if they would look foreign in a duck—like how we pick up the transmitters and stuff? And she said that they're so small it'd look like a normal mineral or something in our body."

"Uh huh," Wildwing finally replied. "How do you know so much about nanobots, Baby Bro?"

"Oh, this stuff is in comics all the time. The next big terrorist plot to destroy the world and all that."

"Wow," Wildwing mused, "I guess you get a little education from them, after all."

"Har har. Oh, she's done!"

As if hearing Nosedive's comment, the main lights to the infirmary kicked on and the infirmary's exit beeped, showing a green light on its command module. The alarm and sprinklers shut off as the vent fans to the room kicked on and began clearing the heavy smoke that still lingered.

As Wildwing and Mallory stood up and walked towards the wreckage the door to the infirmary hissed open, the rest of the team entering and surveying the damage.

"In the future, Angel, I recommend an EMP d'at DOESN'T destroy half the room too, eh?"

Tanya gave Duke a rather sardonic look as she walked up to Wildwing and handed him the Mask, which he took gratefully. Just as she handed off the Mask, however, her eyes drifted over to something next to the Medicoms and she gasped. The blonde duck immediately ran up to the nearby cabinet that had opened in the explosion and whined, "I just bought that stuff last week!" She pulled out some sort of electronic device, her face becoming even more despondent when it fell to pieces in her hands, a few of the chunks charred to nothing more than ash.

After a collective walkthrough of the remainder of the infirmary, the group met up in the center of the room, all looking pitifully at the Medicoms. "So much for fast healing," Nosedive lamented.

"Looks like you coulda used it too, Sweetheart—what da 'ell did you do to your hands?!" Duke had stood next to Mallory as they stared at the wreckage and saw the still-swollen knuckles of the redheads' appendages.

Mallory looked up at him and quickly hid her hands behind her back in a typical military at-ease position. "Punching bag mishap," she curtly explained.

"My anger has rested," Grin bowed to her. "But the bag holds many memories." When he looked up to her he cringed slightly. "Sorry," he added more bluntly.

"Not your fault, Grin. It was because I wasn't wearing boxing gloves."

Tanya reached for Mallory's arms, surprising the redhead. "Can I see?"

Mallory resisted initially but sighed and let the blonde duck take a look at them. "It's nothing some ointment and bandages won't fix."

"No, no, that's not why…." Tanya trailed off as she looked at Mallory's hands. She frowned at the swelling and quickly dropped Mallory's hands, bringing her own forearm up instead. She began to furiously type on the Omnitool attached to it.

The others watched on silently as she quickly typed commands into the system, the scientist's features getting more excited by the second.

"Tanya?"

"Hello?"

"Earth ta Angel—"

"Oh!" the scientist exclaimed.

"What?" everyone asked at once.

"The logs said you were going to do an antibiotic!"

Mallory and Wildwing glanced at one another. "Yeah…?" Mallory finally answered cautiously.

Tanya was exuberant. "The nanobots might be in you!"

Mallory's surprised look turned into horror very quickly. "Say what?"

"Our nanobots, I mean. They inject themselves into the bloodstream to sc-scan for infection and to, uh, deliver the antibiotic."

"It barely had time to start, though—"

"It's the first thing it does when the—uh—procedure calls for it!"

Everyone was staring at Mallory now, which made her shift nervously. "Okay, so then what do I do to get them _out_?"

"Get a Medicom online, of course."

"O' course," Duke reiterated sarcastically. "Darlin', do realize the heap of rubble before you." He made an exaggerated gesture to the remainder of the Medicoms, glancing at Tanya pointedly when she began shaking her head in defiance.

"It doesn't take long to build one—"

"Wait, wouldn't the EMP still have killed them?" Wildwing interrupted. "Even if they are in Mallory?"

"They would've, uh, been protected by her body," Tanya insisted. Already too excited and ready to prove her theory correct, the scientist began typing away into her Omnitool, most likely pulling up the schematics of the Medicom and getting ready to place a giant order with Lectric Land.

Wildwing mentally cringed at the credit card bills for the month.

There was silence as everyone looked from Tanya, to Mallory, and back to the Medicoms. Mallory, to her credit, just crossed her arms and glared back at everyone, not exactly enjoying the center of attention.

Eventually the silence wore out and Nosedive whined, "So, this is good news and all, but can we go to bed now? It's like, three in the morning."


	6. Chapter 6

_One week later_

The fiasco with the nanobots was over. After some research it was determined the Alek Baros was indeed human, and in a weird twist of fate the half-brother of Dr. Droid.

Go figure.

While neither enemy had been heard from since the club incident, it was presumed that Baros had been trying to help his brother get control of the Pond's systems via the nanobots.

Thankfully, nanobot technology was nothing new to the ducks. Granted, they hadn't been expecting it as a threat from Earth since the human planet's technology was much more behind than Puckworld's, but their systems had responded pretty well to the ordeal.

Nonetheless, with this new unforeseen risk Tanya had been upgrading their equipment and placing everything on separate systems, similar to how the Medicoms had been. That way, if another attack occurred, the security system would shut down one system instead of the entire network.

Wildwing hoped they didn't have to deal with another nanobot situation, however. The failed attempt had not roused the evil doctor, despite the team's 99% assumption that it was him who instigated the attack, and it was Wildwing's hope that this had been the crazy scientist's last desperate shot at world conquest.

No news is good news, as they say. Supposedly.

While the infirmary was far from repaired, Tanya had made an extra effort to quickly rebuild a Medicom to prove her theory correct. She was so intent with the idea that she even enlisted Nosedive to help her, much to the teenager's displeasure.

A long overdue comeuppance for the young duck's previous lab destruction, Wildwing mused.

The teenage duck begrudgingly helped her, though, while the rest of the team assisted in the massive cleanup of the former med bay. Most of the work involved recycling the electronics that weren't ruined by the explosion, as the alloy walls and floor needed a professional heavy wash and polish.

Mallory had helped some, but her hands required some time to heal. She had to be benched for a couple games until the swelling went down enough that she could grip a hockey stick. Some rest and ointment did well, however, and by the time the third game came around she was able to resume playing without any issues.

Phil always had a heart attack when they played with one less player, but in Wildwing's eyes they were already at an unfair advantage against most humans that played hockey. It wasn't just the ducks' livelihood back home—they were built for the sport.

Grin finally seemed to have forgiven the hopeless team manager, as well, which meant the publicity stunts were back in full swing. Wildwing had contemplated coercing Phil into introducing Grin to tarot card reading—or even fortune telling—but he respected the big duck too much to put him in that kind of situation again.

The temptation was still there, though, when he thought about that glorious week of Phil being MIA.

Tanya had gotten the Medicom up and running the day before yesterday and had proven her theory correct when she hooked Mallory up to it. She used the same setup Wildwing had done prior to the machine turning off from the security breach and, sure enough, it continued up without a hitch. The Medicom's communication to the nanobots triggered them back into action within Mallory's bloodstream and, after a quick scan, they returned to their priming station once it was determined that Mallory's knuckles were in no need of repair.

So, all in all, everything was back to normal. He and Mallory had even been on slightly better terms, despite the leader's inability to follow-up his interrupted confession from that fateful night.

The moment never seemed right anymore. He didn't feel like he was backed into a corner like he had been that evening, so Wildwing had found every excuse in the book to not tell her. The vulnerabilities from that fight in the gym, however, still hung heavily in his mind and he knew they had left a lot of loose ends untended.

Which was precisely why he asked the redhead to a movie.

It wasn't exactly unusual for him and her to go out to the movies, since they did have a lot of the same interests. But it would be the first time he had asked her since he had tried distancing himself from her, which had led to their fallout and subsequent, albeit awkward, makeup.

They were supposed to go tonight, after the hockey game, but Wildwing was antsy. She had seemed surprised at the proposal—even a bit suspicious—but did not probe the reasoning. It was actually a movie they were both interested in seeing, anyways.

In spite of the plan, however, Wildwing was beginning to feel like he should just tell her sooner. He was not optimistic about his confession in the slightest: in fact, his mind was set that this was nothing more than a full apology for his actions, and the true unguarded reasoning behind his estrangement.

They had been on Earth for just over six months now and he had never gotten even the slightest inkling that Mallory liked him as more than a friend. She had been so dead-set on bringing down Dragaunas that when she wasn't _in_ battle she was _practicing_ battle or letting off steam by playing hockey.

Shopping had been the only outlet she'd allow herself, and that didn't come until over a month into their new Earth-style living. Getting her to go see movies in the beginning had required a lot of casual asking and subsequent rejections, but eventually persistence won out, and she even seemed to enjoy the newfound hobby.

Wildwing didn't want to ruin that tonight. He wanted to apologize, tell her the truth, and finally provide some closure to this whole stupid thing. More than anything he wanted his friendship and trust with Mallory to go back to the way it was before, and the only way to do that would be to tell her the facts.

He wasn't surprised to find her in the same room he had found her a week ago, though this time the military duck was practicing some martial arts on a large mat on the other side of the gym. The heavy bag's crime scene had been cleaned up days ago, a new bag hanging in its place.

As soon as Wildwing entered Mallory saw him, as she was facing the entrance and doing some sort of odd balancing act. Her hands were up in a pacifist's prayer as she crouched down, one leg bent under her in a squat and the other extended out straight. She was perfectly still and taking deep breaths, concentrating.

Wildwing didn't even pretend to understand martial arts. He respected the sport, though, because Drake knows both Grin and Mallory were easily the most skilled ducks in hand-to-hand combat. But the captain knew that he'd just end up in some sort of knot on the ground, a weird entanglement of limbs and his remaining pride gone right out the window.

He offered her a smile as she finished her very acrobatic position and returned to standing on her own two feet.

"Is it game time already?" she asked, slightly breathless.

Wildwing shook his head. "No, not yet." He nodded over to the heavy bag. "Giving yourself a break from the boxing?"

Mallory smirked at him. "Yeah, I figured my knuckles would appreciate the reprieve." She placed her hands on her hips as she continued to catch her breath. "So, what's up?"

Wildwing instinctively brought a hand up behind his neck, a nervous tick he had had since he was a teenager. "I was just seeing if you wanted to go on a walk, beforehand." His voice was much more steady and casual than he felt, the only form of acting that he could confidently say he was good at.

Mallory's expression shifted slightly into confusion, but she covered it quickly. "Sure … is something wrong?"

"No, not like that," Wildwing responded as he hovered at the entrance of the gym. When he realized he was performing his nervous tick he opted to stick his hands in his pockets instead. "Just a nice day."

"Ah." Mallory walked to the side of the mat where her water and towel were, taking a drink of the former as she wiped some sweat off her brow with the latter. "Can I show you something first?" she asked suddenly.

One of Wildwing's eyebrows arched inquiringly. "What?"

"Just—come here," she insisted, motioning with her head as she dropped her water and towel back onto the ground and returned to the center of the pad.

Wildwing didn't need much encouragement. Curiosity getting the better of him he started to follow her up onto the large practicing surface.

"Shoes," she motioned with her hands, still pacing slightly as her breathing returned to a normal rate.

"Oh, yeah." Wildwing quickly brought a knee up, pulling his boot off. He tossed it to the side and swiftly undid the other as well, leaving himself in jeans and a plain t-shirt tucked at the waist. Placing the other shoe next to its mate, he proceeded up onto the protective pad, Mallory watching him expectantly.

Despite his curiosity Wildwing was also bewildered. He stood facing Mallory on the mat, the captain's feet trying to get used to being on a squishy floor. "Uh. . . ." he finally let out, not even sure what to ask.

"I need a live partner to try this move on."

Understanding finally came to Wildwing, although he still felt the approach to be a bit odd. The duo's entire repertoire had been weird for the past month, quite frankly. He mentally shrugged it off and nodded at the redhead.

"Okay, sure, I guess."

He placed his feet shoulder-width apart, facing her. It looked like she'd been practicing for a while, as her clothes were damp with sweat. She pushed some of her hair away from her face and crouched into a fighting stance.

Wildwing was not a great hand-to-hand fighter. He could block, and put up a defense like no other, but he did not instigate. Thankfully, in most situations he didn't have to.

He crouched into his own typical blocking position, waiting.

Mallory did not make him linger long. She came up to him quickly, throwing some basic punches at him that he blocked. She kicked low and he jumped, and the cycle repeated twice, making Wildwing start to wonder what move he was supposed to be helping her practice with.

However, as soon as he thought that she stepped back quickly, turning and bringing her leg down at him with a roundhouse kick. He saw the kick coming in from his left and blocked it with his right arm.

He guessed Mallory was expecting that, as she used the timing of his block to grab his right forearm and use it as a boost to bend under and around him. He barely had time to turn around before she had done a full circle, her arms getting a lock on his left arm. She used the entire momentum of her 360 degree turn, planted her feet, and somersaulted Wildwing across her back, using her arm strength to quickly propel him onto the mat back-first.

The entire move was purposely fast and dizzying. The extra shove into the ground knocked the wind out of him, causing Wildwing to take a couple of deep breaths as he tried to reorient himself.

"That was impressive," he finally mused when he could speak.

"Thanks," Mallory said. "Will only work on drones if I have my puckblaster out to permanently disable them, though."

"I don't know, if you force them to the ground hard enough it might short-circuit them." Mallory offered a hand to the leader, which he gratefully accepted to help him stand back up.

"Been practicing that a while?" Wildwing asked, still trying to catch his breath.

"Yeah, I started working on it last week. Kind of easy to do with dummies, though."

"I resent that."

Mallory rolled her eyes at him. "The mannequins, Wing."

He grinned at her, glad to see even a hint of humor in the redhead's expression. "Oh. Well then, care to try again?" he questioned, giving her a slight smirk as he did so.

Mallory lightly laughed. "I'll have to change it up—if you know what's coming the move doesn't work."

Wildwing nodded, taking her answer as a yes and getting in position again. She breathed out a snicker and shook her head, also getting into position.

With only a few moments of tense waiting Mallory struck again, this time coming from the other side. Wildwing blocked, but she held off, doing basic kicks and punches that he easily blocked. He could tell she was waiting to catch him off guard again.

There were a few more punches before she went low, kicking out and forcing him to bend over to block. Because she was much smaller than him her low-lying position was easy to jump out of and she did just that, attempting her crazy circle of dizziness, as Wildwing had mentally dubbed it.

But Wildwing had picked up on all the small nuances of the move, one of the more skilled traits he possessed. When she went to lock his arm to throw him over her back, he planted his foot, bringing as much power as he could back into her momentum.

Her move stuttered and he flipped around, causing her to fall onto her stomach. He pinned her there with one knee on her back and one arm holding both of her own behind her, similar to how Earth cops placed cuffs on criminals.

"Damn it," she muttered, clearly beat.

"Sorry," Wildwing said but grinned in satisfaction. He let up off her back to help her up.

She got up on her hands and knees as he offered a hand to her. Instead of taking it, however, she kicked out and tripped Wildwing up, causing him to teeter off-balance but not completely fall. She used the time to rapidly jump up and circle him, locking her arms around his again.

Because of her lithe movements and his stumble, Wildwing did not have time to fully block the move the way he wanted to. He tried to use the power of his trunk to stop her attempt, which partially worked, but her own strength matched his and they ended up in a weird backwards tug-of-war. Maintaining balance was impossible in their positions and they both stumbled over one another until they fell into a heap on the mat.

Wildwing ended up on his side and Mallory ended up on her back, _over_ his side. She eventually slid completely off so she was at a weird diagonal next to Wildwing, her legs over his hips and his arm under her head.

From this position they could both see each other's faces. They locked eyes glaring at one another for a couple seconds before they both erupted into a fit of laughter.

"I think at one point one of us needed to let go," Mallory snickered.

"I think someone should've not tried to take me down after I took them down," Wildwing chastised good-naturedly.

"You're the one that memorizes fighting moves like you're in a video game," Mallory argued back. "It makes sparring with you next to impossible."

Wildwing dramatically rolled his eyes at her, which she playfully smacked him for as she sat up and removed her legs from their awkward position. Once she was off him Wildwing sat up as well.

"Thanks, Wing," Mallory finally added more seriously.

They locked eyes with one another on the floor, neither in much of a hurry to stand back up. Wildwing eventually glanced at his COM, noticing the time.

"I suppose the walk might have to wait until after our game."

Mallory looked at her own COM, humming. "Sorry, didn't realize we were cutting it close." She glanced up at him. "You sure it wasn't important? I don't mind—"

The captain shook his head at her, waving the notion off. "It's not a big deal. Raincheck."

"Raincheck?"

Wildwing paused in his motions to stand. "Oh, sorry. Some sort of quote I heard in a show. I think it means to do plans at another time, or something." He stood the rest of the way up and offered his hand to Mallory.

She had a look of puzzlement on her face, most likely from the weird Earth phrase, but shook it off and accepted the hand gratefully.

He pulled her small frame up quickly—too quickly—and caused the redhead to nearly bump into Wildwing's chest. Their hands were still intertwined and forearms bent between them as they held each other's gazes again.

The long pause was tense with anticipation. Wildwing had a million thoughts and ideas flashing through his mind, but he could not find the courage to act. She was watching him, almost waiting . . .?

The moment was lost and she seemed to snap out of her reverie, releasing their handhold and stepping back. She cleared her throat and looked away.

"I'll, uh, meet you up top. Gotta get cleaned up first."

"Sounds good," Wildwing responded, still slightly stupefied about what had just happened. They stepped back from one another again and Wildwing quickly grabbed his shoes before making his way out of the gym, the back of his subconscious silently cursing at him the entire way.


	7. Chapter 7

The final score was 2-1, Kings. Wildwing didn't think he had _stopped_ cursing at himself since he had left the gym those few hours ago. His mind was a jumbled mess and he couldn't think straight, which allowed both of those goals to sneak in.

The rest of the team showed good sportsmanship about the loss, proclaiming that it was the end of a long week and that they had at least won the two previous games. Wildwing apologized, as he usually did when he let a goal through, and the usual banter he received back told him he was at least outwardly playing goalie like his usual self.

Which was good, because he sure as hell didn't feel like he was.

The game had been lost in overtime, which meant that they would be cutting into the time they had to get to the movie if Mallory took Wildwing up on that walk he had suggested earlier. At this point, however, Wildwing wasn't entirely sure what to tell his crush if she did want to go on that stroll.

Up until a few hours ago he thought he didn't have a chance in hell with the redhead.

He still wasn't sure, but he was damned mystified about it now.

The stare he had held with Mallory as he pulled her to her feet was something out of a fantasy, and that in itself worried him. Had he just envisioned her looking at him that way? Was his mind so preoccupied with his feelings that it was actually projecting hallucinations into reality for him?

The sad thing was he'd be more willing to believe that than the alternative.

Wildwing, in an extraordinarily uncharacteristic move for him, went upstairs after the game and got some free beers from the cashier closing up shop at one of the refreshment stands. Wildwing had asked for two but received three on the notion of having a "tough game tonight."

Gee, thanks.

He didn't have much time before the rest of the team finished showering up and he'd either need to step up or bow out. He had every intention of telling Mallory, but before today he had believed it would be closure for his mistreatment of her.

Now, he had to actually consider the possibility that it could open doors.

His nerves were fried and two beers were gone, the third quickly depleting. Earth alcohol did not quite have the effect on ducks as it did on humans, at least not in the quantities humans anticipated it to. For that reason Wildwing enjoyed it more, as the ale on Puckworld was quite strong and much harder to tolerate.

He had taken a seat in the empty stands, high up in the bleachers, and enjoyed the post-game silence of the stadium. Retail and cleaning crews were still strumming about, closing up their kiosks and cleaning up the leftover trash that was strewn about the facility. No one bothered him this high up, though, and it gave him the peace he needed to think things through.

Satisfied but still nervous, Wildwing finished up his last drink and headed downstairs to shower and change.

* * *

0000

Mallory was a little perplexed, to say the least.

She had found Wildwing in the Rec Room waiting for her, but he insisted that they go on that walk before the movie . . . that started in an hour.

It was obvious he wanted to get something off his chest, and Mallory had an inkling it had to do with what happened in the gym tonight.

She wasn't sure she'd be liking what he had to tell her.

It'd been nearly twenty minutes at this point, and he'd been filling in time with some weird questions. She already had figured the movie would have to be postponed again, but she didn't mind. Her own thoughts had been a swirling vortex of uncertainties since that look they gave one another in the gym.

"What would you be doing if the War had never happened?"

Mallory startled at the question. Wildwing had, up to this point, been talking about the game tonight and their upcoming season. This type of query had come out of left field.

They continued their walk around the stadium, the parking lot almost completely empty by this point. They stayed on the outskirts of the property, opting for a more private walk in the shadows to prevent any straggler fans catching them unaware. Mallory glanced at her companion and looked back to the ground, thinking.

"Well, most Special Forces work in extractions. Gangs and mob rings were still a pretty challenging force in most cities, and kidnapping rich or politically-linked ducks was more common than the media would lead you to believe. So, extracting became kind of a specialty for us; we did quite a few training scenarios on it."

Mallory shrugged to herself as she looked out at the empty street next to the Pond. "Alternatively, I could've done interplanetary security or mediation with tribal warfare."

Wildwing's eyebrow arched as he glanced at her. "Puckworld still has tribal warfare?"

"Oh, yeah. Some traditionalists are very territorial. Even without technology, they sure as hell got pretty violent with one another. Special Forces would protect the interpreters and negotiators as they tried to restore some semblance of peace."

"Wow," Wildwing breathed. "I guess the media preferred the latest fashion trends."

"The media delivers what most want. True news doesn't bring in viewers, especially when it's about a tribe on the other side of the planet." Mallory glanced at the leader this time. "What about you?"

He was quiet after her question for a few moments before hesitantly answering, "Um, honestly? I have no idea."

"Really? Weren't you in the University?"

Wildwing nodded. "Yeah, my degree was in engineering."

"That explains why you understand Tanya's gizmos so quickly."

The captain smiled. "Yeah, though I'm not near on the level she is."

"She's got a doctorate, and she's a genius, so I'm thinking not many are." Mallory crossed her arms over herself as they rounded one of the corners of the stadium's lot. "Did you ever consider professional hockey?"

"Ha! No, no way."

"Why not? You're a damn good goalie."

Wildwing cringed slightly as he absently rubbed the back of his neck. "Not tonight, I wasn't. And back home the competition would be a lot more intense."

"No, Canard was right about your abilities: you can block just about anything. You could easily make pros."

Mallory could almost see the blush under the leader's feathers as he shrugged off her comment. "Well, maybe when we make it back home, right?"

 _When_. That word echoed in Mallory's mind as they continued their walk along the ducks' property. Wildwing had always been more optimistic than the others—except for maybe Nosedive—about returning to their home world. It was a trait that worked well with leadership, since maintaining sanguinity was key in keeping the sanity of the team together.

As much as she tried, however, Mallory could not use that word. Returning home would always be an uncertainty to her, and the odds decreased in their favor everyday they were unable to complete their mission.

Wildwing's attitude about it was exactly what they needed, but right now it bothered Mallory. Their entire relationship with one another for the past couple of months had changed so dramatically that she was finding a lot of the good things he did annoying, for no other reason than it baffling her even more.

She knew why it bothered her so much, but she did her best to ignore those feelings. Things like this walk, however, made it hard to not acknowledge them.

They were in somewhat amicable silence after his remark and eventually made their way to the front entrance of the Pond, where the large road to the stadium was lined with wide sidewalks and rows of palm trees. She turned them towards that road, aiming their walk back to the Pond.

After a few more moments of silence, Mallory prompted, "I think we may have to take another, uh, _raincheck_ on that movie."

Wildwing kind of startled at her statement, obviously lost in his own thoughts. He glanced down at his COM. "Oh, wow. Sorry." He was tightening his hands into fists and releasing them nervously, enough so that Mallory had to tilt her head at him.

"Wing, spit it out."

That seemed to gather his attention. He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. "Back in the infirmary, before the whole nanobot thing, I was trying to explain my actions, from earlier."

"You don't need to."

Wildwing looked like he was ready to go into some long spiel, but that statement stopped him in his tracks. "Wait, what?"

She shrugged at him as they neared the main entrance to the stadium. "Let's just call this a clean slate—makes things easier."

He still seemed stupefied, enough so that he didn't outright respond to her. She opened one of the many doors into the Pond, holding it open so Wildwing could follow. When she looked back, however, he was still standing a couple of paces away.

"What do you mean, 'makes things easier'?" he asked her, finally snapping back into gear and following her inside.

"I just think we should drop it," Mallory answered back, feeling some defense rising in her voice.

Wildwing caught up to her more determined walking, having to increase his own pace to stay beside her as they passed through the kiosks and made their way down to the ice rink.

"Mal, I think after what happened at the club, and then at the gym tonight, warrants a conversation."

She couldn't bring herself to make eye contact, so she opted to keep her eyes on the ground in front of her as they found the employee access stairwell and made their way down to the lockers.

Mallory had been in check of her emotions for a while now, but the varying highs and lows between her and Wildwing was beginning to make her feel like she was on a rollercoaster.

They made it to the lockers, Mallory typing in the access code to open the elevator down to their headquarters. She didn't know how to respond to Wildwing's statement and, quite frankly, didn't want to.

She had been hoping that things would just go back to normal, or at least as normal as one could expect when living on an alien planet.

Taking a side glance and seeing Wildwing waiting expectantly, however, told her that this was not going to be the case.

Anger began to rise up in the redhead. "Fine, you want to talk about it? Talk."

She turned to him and crossed her arms, waiting for him to continue.

Her sudden outburst seemed to have paralyzed him again, because his beak hung open slightly with no words forming.

"See?" she responded as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. "Leaving it as a clean slate is better than trying to talk about us."

She left the elevator and made her way back to the bunkers, crossing through the empty Ready Room with the obnoxiously large Drake One looming above them.

She made it through the large room, through the Rec Room, and into the hallway before she heard her name again.

"Mal!"

She ignored him and continued to walk determinedly back to her room.

Wildwing caught up with her, jogging in front of her and stopping her advancement. "Hey, wait a minute."

She had no choice but to stop, but she crossed her arms and glared at him.

"You said 'us.'"

"What?"

"You said it's 'better than trying to talk about us.'"

"No, I didn't." She looked to the ground as she felt her face flush and silently hoped her feathers masked most of it.

One of Wildwing's hands came to rest on her shoulder. "Hey," he said again, prompting her.

She sighed and looked up at him.

"Mallory, come on, _talk_ to me." He watched her expression, searching. "We can't keep doing this."

Mallory had never felt more vulnerable than she did just standing there, her confession on the tip of her tongue. But she couldn't bring herself to take that risk, and it infuriated her.

"It's stupid, really," she insisted, sidestepping him as she said it. "I'm pretty beat, I'm going to go bed."

They were in the long hallway of bunkers, which meant they had to keep their voices down to prevent their conversation from waking anyone. Mallory's room was behind Wildwing and to their right. She walked around him and up to it but had her path blocked again by the leader.

This time both of his hands came to rest on her shoulders. "Mallory, _please_. We can't just keep pretending like everything's fine."

"Yeah, well, it's obviously not something either of us can talk about," Mallory maintained, her speech strained.

"Why not?"

"Because!" Mallory's voice raised but she quieted herself quickly. "Because," she continued and faltered. Her temper flared at herself and she pushed Wildwing's hands off of her, a growl of frustration coming from her before she could stop it.

Wildwing had not moved out of the way, effectively blocking her console that would open her bedroom door. He watched her intently.

A part of Mallory relented as she watched the leader watch her. She sighed as she said, "I didn't understand—I thought I had maybe done or said something that changed your opinion of me. And then the whole situation at the club happened. You—"

She stopped, her voice faltering again.

Wildwing's expression had softened significantly as he continued looking at her. When she spoke her last sentence he frowned. "Did I do something wrong, at the club . . .?"

"Yes—no, you just . . .." Mallory balled her hands into fists instinctively, then released it quickly and shook her hands out, her knuckles still sore from the punching bag incident. "You didn't do anything wrong," she lamented. "You protected me."

She looked back up at him to see a flash of emotions cross his features. He anxiously rubbed the back of his neck. "You seem . . . angry, about that."

Mallory shook her head. "No, not angry. After everything that had happened, you were more furious than I was when Baros said those things. And then, when the place came crashing down—and even afterwards, when I was climbing out, you were so . . . I don't know. I'm just confused."

The word _confused_ may have been an understatement.

Mallory's feelings for the captain had grown exponentially in this short time on Earth, but she was too stubborn to do anything about it. He wasn't military, but she had had it drilled into her about proper etiquette, including the steadfast rule that you did _not_ get into relationships with your fellow officers, _especially_ the higher ranking ones.

It was a standard rule that was broken as often as it was drilled into the cadets. The reality was the combination of excitement, adrenaline, and physical close quarters meant emotions and hormones were always running high. The trick was to not get caught.

But Mallory had enough to deal with being the daughter of a general and four older brothers that were well known throughout the Forces. Everyone assumed she was a spoiled brat that hadn't earned her way into the program. Thus, she had to follow the rules by the book to keep herself safe from those itching to find a reason to get rid of her.

It wasn't very hard in the end; it took more than enough willpower to not brutally maim most of her fellow cadets. The thought of relations with one sent her stomach churning.

But Wildwing was different and always had been. He was a reluctant leader born for the role, and valued loyalty and trust above all else. When they had first come to Earth he had valued Mallory's advice wholeheartedly, and paired her with him on many of their missions.

It was when she really began to develop her feelings for the leader.

And then one day it stopped. Something or someone had set him off, and Wildwing no longer listened to her advice, not like he used to. He stopped placing her with him when they split up, and Mallory had wondered if he had somehow gotten wind of her attraction to him.

She hadn't told anyone, but Mallory wasn't always the most subtle of ducks in her actions. Without much else to go on it was all she could assume.

But suddenly she was the bane of bad ideas and was once again the temperamental teammate of the group that blew up at everything. The fact that it came from him hurt Mallory even more, and that in itself pissed her off more than anything. He had managed to get under her feathers, both in a good _and_ bad way, enough so that she was angrier at herself for letting her emotions get in the way.

Eventually she got used to it again and shut herself off from the rest of the team. It wasn't much different from the Special Forces in a lot of ways, aside from the foreign feelings for her commander that she had to mentally push away.

But on one mission a few weeks ago he had gone too far. They were up against some lowlife Earth criminals, trying to figure out the best way to catch them unaware. Her idea of setting off the alarm was instantly shot down. After a few more suggestions Tanya reiterated Mallory's idea, adding the extra incentive of having Duke do it as soon as their guard was down.

Wildwing almost instantly agreed to Tanya's idea—a proverbial reincarnation of her own that she had voiced a minute prior—and Mallory ended up blowing up at him.

Something had flashed in his eyes—a realization of sorts?—and he had apologized profusely. They proceeded with the plan, which went off without a hitch, and captured the criminals in the act. They even managed to not piss Klegghorn off, an end to a series of events that equated to a good day.

When they had got home he had pulled her to the side and apologized to her again, though he never provided an explanation as to why.

Nonetheless, he began treating her like an equal again. He had been prompting her for more advice and ideas lately, but Mallory would have little to do with it. She had been so angry with herself for being hurt at the first change in attitude from him that she was unwilling to go down that road again.

The whole situation was just bizarre. And then, at the club, he had grown so protective of her. There was no denying the pure anger that emanated off of him at Baros' comments, and when the place began to crumple from the damage of the robots he had instinctively pulled her to him to shield her from the falling debris.

It was instinct for him to be the caring leader that he was. Everything that had happened at the club seemed like second nature to him, but Mallory could sense that he had to struggle to push her away these past couple of months. And the only reason she could come up with was his realization of—and subsequent concern over—her feelings for him.

If he knew about her attraction to him, it was likely he would act the way he did because he didn't know how to let her down gently.

He looked so nervous after her statement, which compounded that idea into a more plausible scenario. She internally sighed as she watched him.

"It's not a big deal," she finally added. "Seriously, I'll figure it out. Might take murdering another punching bag, though."

She had said it lightly, meaning it as a joke, but Wildwing seemed to be hit hard by her statement. His nervous reach behind his head stopped and he pointedly looked at the redhead.

"Mallory, I—"

"Just kidding, Wing. It's okay," she interrupted, sidestepping him again. This time he let her, giving her access to her console.

"It's not okay, Mal. I need to—"

"Wildwing," Mallory interrupted again, finishing typing her commands into the keyboard and causing the door to the bedroom to silently slide open. She turned to him, her hands up in a soothing gesture. "Clean slate, remember?"

His beak was open, still ready to protest, but he eventually sighed and nodded to her. "Okay," he voiced his agreement, though his simple statement came out almost dejectedly.

"Thank you, for the walk," she added quietly, offering him a small smile. "Raincheck on the movie?"

"Of course."

She fidgeted slightly, a very uncharacteristic move for her. She mentally shrugged it off and nodded to him.

"Good night," she nearly whispered.

* * *

0000

Wildwing's heart was thumping wildly. _Do it_ , his mind encouraged relentlessly.

He pushed the thought away but had little time to act. She was already turning towards her bedroom.

Feeling the weight of time slipping, Wildwing reached out and grasped Mallory's shoulder, startling her. He took a deep, shaky breath as he tried to pinpoint any signs in her facial expression.

But no matter how hard he looked her guard was back up, a neutral face staring back at him.

He had really messed this all up. If he had just confessed to her in the beginning, he wouldn't have hurt her the way that he had.

But no, he had to be so sensitive to his brother's teasing and completely ruin the chance at something more.

He had nothing to say, nothing to do. He'd lost the nerve completely.

"Good night," he repeated her earlier statement. It felt like everything was slipping away.

In one last bid—coupled with either the bravery of mental exhaustion, those few beers he had had, or just plain stupidity—he bent down to give her a kiss on the side of the beak.

They called it a kiss, but it wasn't what humans considered kissing. The upper bill was used to brush the side of someone else's bill as a sign of respect and familiarity in their culture.

Actual kissing to ducks was more akin to what humans called nuzzling. All of the ducks had been a little weirded out by the human style of kissing, which seemed to consist of a lot of spit swapping.

Nonetheless, the feelings and reactions were similar. Wildwing hoped his gesture would at least provide him and Mallory some closure.

Despite its meaning none of the ducks had given the other a side kiss. It was more commonly used with close friendships, family, or for more formal engagements. Because of that, combined with his anxiety peaking from making the move, he seemed to have baffled the receiver. She looked to be ready say something and, at the same time, was turning her head to where Wildwing's was going, presumably to see what she thought he was reaching for.

So, with all of his best intentions, Wildwing instead nuzzled Mallory on the beak straight on.

Both stopped in their tracks, frozen from the accidental kiss. It might have not been intentional, but it was a move that was extraordinarily intimate in their culture.

And for Wildwing, it was electric. It was not something he could just brush off as an accident. His heart was racing—she was equally frozen as him and he didn't know what to do.

He knew exactly what he _wanted_ to do, but what if—

All thoughts dropped as Mallory came back for more. She pressed her beak to his, her hands coming up to the side of his head and pulling him down to her height. Wildwing had to quickly put a hand on the wall to prevent himself from falling on top of her. His other hand instinctively went to her side, pulling her close to him.

Eventually her hands went from his head to his chest, her breath shaky as she looked up at him. Wildwing's larger form was hovering over her, his one arm bracing himself against the wall and his other wrapped around her waist, pressing her body into his.

They both stayed like that, breathless, the weight of events leading up to this moment slowly settling in.

A flash of fear crossed Mallory's face as reality set in.

Before she could say anything, however, Wildwing pushed up off the wall and let his free hand brush the side of her face.

"You . . . have no idea how long I wanted to do that," he finally whispered to her.

The fear in her features subsided and was replaced with surprise.

"That's what I was trying to tell you," he continued. "In my attempt to, uh, hide my feelings I apparently became a giant ass."

Mallory smirked at him. "I thought you were acting that way because you had found out I liked you."

Wildwing reached down and nuzzled her beak again, albeit much more gently this time. When they broke off he released his tight hold on her.

They both watched each other, neither sure of how to proceed. Eventually Mallory glanced at her open bedroom.

"I guess . . . I'll see you tomorrow?"

Wildwing smiled at her. "We do have a movie to see."

Mallory blushed slightly but smiled through it. "I guess we do."

"Good night, Mal."

"Good night," she responded, giving him one last glance before walking into her room, the doors hissing shut behind her.

Wildwing stayed in his position for a few moments, the silence weighing heavily in the empty hall.

A goofy grin spread across his beak, however, and he threw a fist into the air and jumped in celebration before heading to his own bunk for the evening.

 _fin_


End file.
